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How to: Troubleshoot Templates

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Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

If a template fails to load in the development environment, there are several ways to locate the problem.

Validating the .vstemplate File

If the .vstemplate file in a template does not adhere to the Visual Studio template schema, the template may not appear in the New Project dialog box.

To validate the .vstemplate file

  1. Locate the .zip file that contains the template.

  2. Extract the .zip file.

  3. On the File menu in Visual Studio, click Open, and then click File.

  4. Select the .vstemplate file for the template, and click Open.

  5. Verify that the XML of the .vstemplate file adheres to the Visual Studio template schema. For more information on the .vstemplate schema, see Visual Studio Template Schema Reference.

    Note

    To get IntelliSense support while authoring the .vstemplate file, add a xmlns attribute to the VSTemplate element and assign it a value of https://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/vstemplate/2005.

  6. Save and close the .vstemplate file.

  7. Select the files included in your template, right-click, select Send To, and click Compressed (zipped) Folder. The files that you selected are compressed into a .zip file.

  8. Place the new .zip file in the same directory as the old .zip file.

  9. Delete the extracted template files and the old template .zip file.

Monitoring the Event Log

Visual Studio logs errors encountered when processing template .zip files. If a template does not show up in the New Project dialog box as expected, you can use Event Viewer to troubleshoot the issue.

To locate template errors in Event Viewer

  1. In Windows, click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Event Viewer.

  2. In the left pane, click Application.

  3. Look for events with a Source value of Visual Studio - VsTemplate.

  4. Double-click on a template event to view the error.

See Also

Customizing Templates Creating Project and Item Templates Visual Studio Template Schema Reference